Queen of Denial (A River in Egypt)

Life in tha 'hood can be fun, challenging, scary, tense, and totally inaccurate, all at once. In a quest for self-determination and a carefully calculated cutting of ties with the past (to create a false new one), folks often made up versions of their selves, in lieu of access to any real information. Enter into downtown Brooklyn me and my friend from school daze, an actual African-born woman from Ghana, which created a weird dynamic around her wherever she went, fueled by Spike Lee's wildly exaggerated and often misguided tales of Brooklyn, designed to shock and amaze his exotic-seeking (and rich) white audiences.

L.I.U.'s downtown campus was exactly what Fulton Street was at the time: an almost totally black neighborhood, with a few Hispanic girls thrown into the mix for "diversity". I was given a free ride to Howard University back in the day, because black campuses struggled to right a segregation not of our generation's creation, but it was a hard way to go. Many of the kids we met in the late 80s had never spoken to a "white" girl before, so me and my suburban friend felt as adrift and lost at sea as my ancestors were in their boat rides over.

It made for some comic times that were colored darkly, like a group of earnest but completely unrealistic young men who sought freedom of expression through their public exposition on their collective hatred of "the white man", but not literally, of course (just in case I was the "PoPo" undercover and at work in their college dorm room environment, at the tender age of 18). They mocked my friend's "white" accent, which is actually a fairly standard New York one, as she ripped into them for their phony Ebonics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonics).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra

In the glow of Junior's cheesecake and fried chicken joint, we were forced to improvise identities for the sake of our protection while we walked the streets, and with my ethnicities, it was pretty easy for me to do. I slicked back my hair into a "fly" ponytail and painted my lips bright red, swinging my head 'round with big ghetto-sized silver hoops. It gave me room to breathe and "pass", but I still looked at Dr. Zizmor's* ads for ripped earlobe surgery with trepidation. It was the violent girl gang thang to do back in the day; sneak up on a 'ho, and rip the earring right the fuck off her ear. 
Don't even think about wearing gold or fancy sneaks on the train, which I didn't. I couldn't have afforded the gear anyway. *(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Zizmor)

And so I was privy to conversations most average white people have never heard, like how "The Man" keeps us down: "Right, sista?" said one Latino girl (no, not the ancient Latin kind of Holy Roman) to me, as she turned to me listening in, on the edge of a group in front of campus, for support. It was a shock, and I hitched in a tiny breath no one noticed without skipping a brief beat: "Yeah, girl!", and I was in.

Little did we know the depths of American ignorance about the lands they'd been ripped out of, because most of them did not know that my girl from school was actually Ghanaian from the real west coast of Africa. They'd flown over on a plane though, and had an above-ground swimming pool that I certainly didn't have. None of them could really know us, because the truth would put our lives in real danger, but we laughed about it in private and behind closed doors. Oh, shit! That girl really believes she's descended from some Egyptian Pharaoh? Is that where she think she from, girl?! Fuuuuck!

Because, you see, me and my friend from school knew one very pretty and very real first generation Egyptian-American girl named Dahlia growing up: a perfectly lovely name for a ringleted girl of olive complexion from a Christian family in Egypt, and someone who is most definitely NOT Kush or Nubian, but that's a story for another day. 

For now, let's look to the blood for our real genetic history, because the blood doesn't lie. The truth will out! See you 'round the way, some day or another, mes amis. 

Your homework for today, 'hood rats:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubia
http://bit.ly/1Lr7oOm 

Dark and Light

 

You might not know it, but advertisers fucking hate you. So do their useless product generators, and their insane marketing people. They hate you, too. I mean, really hate you. Your hair is bad, your skin is bad, your weight is bad....everything about you is bad, Bad, BAD!, in ever increasingly hysteric tones. I am (of course) the greatest evil in their Bizarro* world, because I am immune to programming, which sucks for them (or you, if you read this and recognize yourself in it).

Gen X'ers, like hep cats, jazz aficionados, flappers, and every other original generation before them, are particularly offensive to the "sell-at-all" costs crowd, because we are not a marketing trend. How do you reach a demo with no pigeon-holed stereotype? You can't, thus the hatred hardily mixed with fear and loathing (thanks, Hunter S. Thompson). No one can get inside your head if you know who you are, the essence that is YOU, because you can't be commoditized.

The chains that bind us to oppression are often of our own choosing. My father used to tell me that the greatest prisons are the ones people create in their own minds, and that is true. How can you be a wage slave unless you sign on the dotted line to the contract that binds you to someone else, most likely a stranger without your best interest at heart? When you do react against it, there's a steady stream of vindictive slurs tailor-made just for you, like "Darkie" or "Pasty".

Don't believe me? OK, check this piece of weirdness out. "Your skin is too dark! Buy this": (insert brand name here). "Oh, yeah? Well, I think your skin is too light. Buy this": (insert competing brand from same company here). Freaked out, yet? Welcome to my world. 

You can have all the lotions you want, if you'd only buy into it.

http://bit.ly/1jgA2FF

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World

All That Jazz!

America, meet the Jennings: http://r29.co/1I8ZU1Q

I've been fascinated with the recent heightened awareness about the transgender community for awhile now, because I see them as cultural "outsiders" like me, but not for something of our particular creation. How can this be true? A gay man does not choose to have a brain shape that more closely resembles the brain of a heterosexual woman, a change that occurs during the earliest phases of fetal gestation, which makes it almost impossible for a mother to have any control over it, although photographic imaging technology improves our ability to see almost daily. 

It's given us the necessary scientific evidence we need to help treat our populations who have long suffered from false accusations of choice. How the heck does a small embryo "choose" his or her brain shape? Through sheer willpower?! It sounds absurd to us now that we know better, and yet during the Salem witch hunt days, Puritans wrongly believed women with moles were witches and burned them to death by tying them to a stake, albeit with the "holiest" of motives. Where was the compassion for a common skin feature then? 

What has always been taboo to the typically European "white man" has, in fact, always been accepted (not perfectly, but much better) by native First Nations of America** as a human part of tribal life. In fact, many societies accept the third gender as a natural part of life, the way a mother accepts her child's Albinism; it's a rare but beautiful thing.

Enter into the scene my favorite kiddie New Yorker, beautiful baby Jazz, a wunderkind dynamo if ever there was. From the age of two or three, Jazz told her parents she was a girl, because she is a girl. Not in all facets, yet (because she's still a teenager), but internally, deep in her brain, where we've yet to go where with our still-limited technical abilities, although I feel more confident than ever that we will get the correct results, because this mama ain't ever wrong about what she knows to be true. And so were Jazz's really "New Yawk" parents sure, too; two very normal Longyland people from totally normal backgrounds, who had no idea what "trans" was, let alone suggest it to their baby in utero. 

But what they did have (and still do) was the love, compassion, intelligence, and faith to understand that they did not raise a liar, or a cheat, or a sneak, certainly not as a cute lil' toddler. They choose to love, accept, support, and take care of their special little girl; not because you like it, but because they have G-d's absolute empathy and understanding, just like do you.

Oh, I know all about the wackos who can easily throw up Bible scripture like they wrote it yesterday and understand it perfectly, but as someone who has seen firsthand many people with learning disorders and mentally disabilities struggle to read one perfect, easy book (think of "Bible Study" as Special Ed for the spiritually inept), you know what I'm up against here. All I ask is that you let me tend to my own kind while I get you the information you need, in a way that you can understand. That's it. You don't have to do a thing. I got this one.

Special "shout-outs" to the wonderfully smart Dr. Marci*** for leading the way by honoring her Hippocratic Oath, and actively using her experienced background as a transgender healer to make a difference by saving lives one person at a time, and my man Chaz Bono for staying strong and true. It ain't easy being real in a world that can seem so fake at times, but that's exactly where all the gloriously good stuff is. Thanks for leading the way.


*      http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2008/06/17/gayness_linked_to_brain.html

**    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Spirit

***  http://marcibowers.com/

Seagrass

Kimberly is a sixth-generation weaver. And Lynette's granddaughter, Allisse -- they hope -- will be a seventh.

We've seen it countless times in the media: why all the fuss over this white rapper, or that jazz violinist from Harvard who paid for the privilege of playing at Carnegie Hall? What gives? This is equality! Or is it? 

I think you know it isn't, but if you want to feign ignorance, you'll know for sure after I finish this piece, because we all know cultural misappropriation* when we see it, hear it, or sell it. That cultural artifact IS NOT yours to have by birthright, and you know it isn't. 

When you borrow from someone's past without asking them for permission, or give them written consent, or at least do them the courtesy of paying what is often a small fee for their people's story, 
you rip them off again, which is why almost every ethnic minority on the planet still suffers from the ravages of poverty....because that's exactly the intended effect. Played the white man's game to win? Cool! 

Just don't look back, or lift up those who came first through recognition of their collective gifts, because that would make you honest in a very sneaky, nasty, dishonest, loathsome game. White girl from South Africa (and other empire-building African-Americans), you know who the fuck I mean. Kid, you keep rockin' to it, because that's all you, your background, and your life. You can't quit legit, can you? No, you can't. We have more than seven generations of strength. 

Welcome to today's assignment, class:

http://cbsn.ws/1CG7PSl

http://bit.ly/1TFnt4r

 

 

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation

Jimmy O.D.

Years ago, I worked for a small Jewish family business in trouble. The two kids hated the business of publishing, which they tried to use for their "creative" endeavors, like screenwriting and music. It didn't work for them, because publishing is about books. And so, I was left with two spoiled "Manhattanites" who'd been told all their lives that they were gifted from their parents. Into this mess, I was charged with righting the ship of one of their Barnes and Noble imprints. It had been ditched into the gutter for being "crass" in comparison to the other Classic series of copyright-free works, which was a total joke. 

The bargain books were face-out on the shelf in every store in the nation, a fact that had become a traveling game for me. In each town, I'd look for my name on the jackets of titles I worked on, and wherever I went in America, there I was in book form, too. Because I broke my ass for two years to put it back into shape, I had a lot of pull in the company (and the industry), which gave me the power to make some tricky decisions, especially uncomfortable ones that included their family who drew income but produced no revenue. Their single daughter would sweep in from London to treat me like a Kinko's kid making copies for her, because she wanted to brag about her designer apartment that just got a write-up. Did I want to see it? They had tons of people in their lives like that, but such was the era of housewife decorators and artsy stay-at-home moms. You know the type.

When I finally conflicted artfully well with their small son over IT support (it'd been a handy weapon from Day 1 of my time), I knew I carried the whole history of desktop publishing and Mac computers with me. My enemy camp kept making petty remarks about Apple's business tactics and the inherent snobbery designers had about their corporate-sponsored trophy computers, neither of which I disputed. I pointed that out in several meetings with the enemy camp; a row of rich white men on one side, with me and my cowardly deaf mute designer on the other. She always backed out of speaking up in meetings by citing her deafness, which usually worked at stalling the machine, but not for me, because I have a deaf father. And so, when they finally realized that shutting out design and technology had dearly cost them their business edge, the son surprisingly decided it was time to finally pursue that music career full time, by touring and cutting a self-made CD, another type of business he knew I had under my belt, too.

Enter the scene one dramatic and showy character named Jimmy. The company admin gave him "advice" within my earshot about how to work me over as a client, by giving him "tips" like appealing to my Irish side and being charming, Yeah, Mick. Fooking do that. I liked Jimmy, as I typically do with my kind. He was smart, gifted, quick, and good with the older crowd who feared computers like they were boxes sent form Hell to deliberately torture them. Because he was older than me, he knew how to mock and demonize technology so that the older rich guy would cough up the dough. After all, Jimmy was a trained actor, as well as an IT guy, professional musician, lapsed Catholic, martial artist, and newly graduated fine artist.

He showed me pictures he took of his beautiful wife and classically Celtic sons: a striking "Black Irish" clan with bright blue eyes, fair skin, red lips, and dark dark hair. Yeah, I know. The boys were into Mohawk hair designs and boxing poses, which slayed me, but I wanted him to play me like a fiddle to get us what we needed, and he knew I knew the game cold. On one warm St. Pat's evening, I took the publisher's intern nephew on a long walk with me that spanned from the East 30's all the way down to Stone Street, to hear him play. It was loud brash standards (which embarrassed him a bit), but I could tell he was good. I wanted to show him support in lieu of his recent divorce, a shock that rocked him to the core.

I didn't know how bad it was until he showed up at the job with a bagel and hysteric tears, which frightened me. I told him about my own brief brush up with a marriage I'd been suckered into, but I realized it was much worse for him. His wife had done herself up buff at the gym while he worked and played around, which couldn't have meant he spent much time at home, and the kind he did was questionable at best. You don't cry onto your client's keyboard without a really bad heartache, because I paid him every penny he was worth. 

When he broke down in front of me, I knew I could either save him or lose him in that very moment. And so I did what anyone like me would do: when he bitched about his weight gain, I caught his darting red eyes, locked in on him, and told him the truth flat-out. He was in danger of something a lot more serious than a brief spat with gluttony, and he knew what I meant, because he bowed his head down for a moment. I left to get coffee in the company kitchen, and let him collect himself. By the time I came back, he'd put on a brave front with a sheepish grin. He knew I'd never fire him, but he'd embarrassed himself at work, and that was a lapse I knew he didn't do often, because I worked under the same threats as he.

After St. Patrick's Day, I only saw him once. The struggling family outfit finally let me go to "clean house", after they'd tried to use every political card they had against me. He'd done me a right turn by getting me an interview at his day job. I wasn't suited for it as a lowbrow market and I knew it, but it was good PR for me, because it let the industry know I was shopping around. I heard him gossip to the art director of a splashy photo mag there that she'd seen my portfolio with CD's. He asked her quietly: "How did it look?". She said she caught one minor error about a tiny line of 5 point copyright info placed too close to the donut whole on one disc layout (I did all my own layouts and production), but that my music creds were solid and true. I did have a famous musician or two in my book, complete with logos, booklets, cases, and all. "Shit", he said under his breath. I could see them out of the corner of my eye in his office from my vantage point in the conference room, him at his desk with her standing over him. 

The interview was over, and the next time I heard anything about Jimmy was on Facebook, because he committed suicide that winter by taking a handful of sleeping pills while home alone in Woodstock, packing up his stuff during his first Christmas alone and without his family. He'd been gracious enough to post us a good-bye photo on Facebook, with a caption below his last self-portrait that read about how tired he was, and that was the last of it. Forever.

For Jimmy 

 http://www.silive.com/obituaries/index.ssf/2011/01/james_odonnell_55.html

"Smokey"

Years ago I smoked cigarettes, which is hard for many people (including me) to fathom. Why?! Truth be told, I was a horrible smoker, which was why I began in the first place: I'm not a binge drinker like many of the kids I grew up with. "Smokey" was actually another one of the nicknames created by my "bestie", like "Uker". I'd puke if I drank too much, you know, because too much alcohol makes you sick. 

And so I compensated for not having an alcohol addiction by using cigarettes to calm my stomach from an excess of beer drinking, something college kids ruthlessly monitored me over (like my normal sleep patterns and continued persistent refusals to party overmuch), to keep their own massive consumptions obscured. I knew it, just like I knew my Dad smoked, as did a few of my grandparents, in response to life stress and their own addictive patterns. 

Like many Gen X'ers, I found myself wrecked by the consequences of other peoples' blatant disregard for my health, well-being, and safety. After years of being bored and sickened by someone else's stupid habit, I finally broke the cycle of abuse for me by quitting smoking cold turkey, because I had several bouts of DVT, related to knee surgery. 

I knew I was never an addict by the time I tried to use the lowest dose of nicotine patches available, because I had to leave my art director's job mid-day from a sick stomach; the severe nausea healthy people have in response to the harsh chemical cocktail designed to addict that's in cigarettes. For me, the cycle has forever been broken by my iron will, though the mentally ill receptionist at that former job, who compulsively gossiped as a political weapon (which I successfully used against her), merely changed the tone of her attack from noting my smoking habit to any other thing she felt she could get away with. 

Today I ask you to break the bad habits imposed upon you by others (those that were created in response to repeated personal attacks), by getting clean and healthy, like our fabulous health official Dr. Mary Bassett; herself an educated healer and fellow New Yorker, also caught in the twin traps of getting by on nothing, while fighting a corruptly biased system. Today we declare our collective good health, for all the peoples of the world still fighting oppression. I got your back, girl. 

May G-d bless you and keep you safe, 

in these final days of hope and light.

Quitting Smoking:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/about/commish-bio.shtml

https://a816-nycquits.nyc.gov/pages/homepage.aspx

The Tobacco Industry:

http://www.thestreet.com/topic/25884/top-rated-equity-tobacco.html 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3490543/ 

A series of black and white self-portraits I made for (and sent to) my old college boyfriend, who needed support during his time at McGill University while I worked three jobs at RISD, which he blamed me for. He retaliated by transferring out of Oneonta before me during my last semester there, supposedly because I "insisted" on "wasting my time" at art school. Amen to you who are my similarly afflicted.

1-866-NYC-QUITS (1-866-697-8487) 

http://www.nysmokefree.com/ 

Cloud Factory

 Welcome to the dog days of summer*, without air conditioning.

(Pearl River, New York - July 2015)

 

 

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_days

 

 

A New Chapter (at the end of the world)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

Greece has officially joined the party for change this month by declaring bankruptcy and asking us for debt forgiveness, which is exactly what one of our oldest and most evolved societies should do. Ancient Greece, anyone? Yeah, that's what I thought. 

Why do they need to honor our overblown debt system, with it's petty bureaucrats and rampant corruption? For what, exactly?! Providing a template the world over for a true democracy? Or is it the concept of "no taxation without representation" that you find so insulting?! Maybe Senators piss you off because they're smarter than you, but who really cares anymore? Stuff it, wanker. 

We've had enough of the bullshit, hate, and lies. Go bankrupt yourself, and instead of finding fool's gold at the end of the it, you may find yourself among the righteous, bad publicity excluded. Hey, I feel like getting a gyro from the diner here, with extra tzatziki* sauce on the side, and a heap of freshly cooked french fries! 

Now do your homework, and maybe you can join me there sometime. Maybe.

• http://biblehub.com/acts/2-45.htm

• https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A19-21&version=ESV

• https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+6%3A6-10&version=ESV

• https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+9%3A6-9&version=ESV

• http://biblehub.com/luke/12-33.htm 

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzatziki

 

On the hunt

http://www.venisondonation.org/

If you're a regular reader of mine, you should know by now that hunger is a human problem, and not a food one. Humans have always used resources as leverage against one another in times of war, and what greater weapon of mass destruction is there if not for starvation? 

Many a cynic has gone on t.v. in some corporate-sponsored advertisement to disturb your Saturday ballgame viewing with horrible images of bloat-belly children in Africa, in a crass exploitation of so-called "white guilt" and the collective sense of responsibility we feel as hardworking, wealthy Americans. 

But, as my man Father Raphael (from Nigeria) pointed out to one such carnival barker who used the St. Francis parish to fund-raise, with his disgustingly lurid pictures of poor children: "When hasn't there been starving children in Africa?", which is a delicate, sensitive, and extremely intelligent criticism that opens up further under scrutiny. Aren't there rich people in Africa who care about Africans?! 
What happened to them all? 

As bad as the slave trade has been for many people of American descent, it isn't the full story about our world in crisis. It's sort of like my old housemate from art school, who immediately noticed when I didn't pack-rat my tiny hearing aid batteries for recycling later, because I replaced an old one for a new one while walking and talking with her on the street, and then tossed the tiny battery into a garbage pail. (Sue: they're mercury-free because I asked my audiologist on my next visit to town. Thanks for making me feel paranoid and irresponsible. Sleep easy, gentle hippie). 

Is it really up to me and my every miniscule action to save the world?! How can that be? I understand the Butterfly Effect*, and the implications that a small movement may have many miles away, but like my mom's exhortations about sending my uneaten broccoli to Africa, there's something about useless fretting that obscures much deeper issues.

When I had no money to give, I gave my blood. When I had no food to eat, I sold my belongings. When I had more time to spare, I gave it back to the church as an apprentice Sunday School teacher. 
Which brings me back to the same eternal question of: what can you do? Besides sending badly cooked vegetables overseas. 

This week, I urge you to look beyond the quick, obvious, and easy, as you reach back out into the world to help. What can you do right now, with just what you have on hand? 

Thank you for your patience while we right your wrongs, most directly with new legislation that addresses massive supermarket waste. 
Don't worry: we won't send you deer meat, if venison isn't your thing. 
It isn't mine, either.

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/food_waste_loc/?bkmQyjb&v=61604

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
 

The Suit Makes the Man

http://tinyurl.com/oz4a9vy

"Flava" comes in all shapes, sizes, shades, cuts, and styles. You can't pin it down like a fine fabric, but you know it when you got it, and when you got it, flaunt it. Hard. Some guys don't know how to feather their own nest, and that's okay, too. A great tailor and master suit-maker will make you feel like a million bucks, at a much better price. Don't believe me, kid? That's fine. 

Go find out for yourself, and see if you don't feel better with your waist tucked in and your shoulders lined up just right. Then, you'll say what they all say to me, one way or another, on some day soon, or way into the future: what does it feel like to always be right? 

To which I say this: it ain't right to be abused and havin' to fight your way to the top (yet again), but the view from here suits me just fine, because like you, I know exactly where I belong. Right up there with you, and nowadays the feelin' is fine, my friend. 

Enjoy the good life that's sweet, just like we do, ami. There ain't no betta gift than being the best you there is, the "you" you were always meant to be. Give the gift of your own self back to yourself. Go on. Shine!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Greenfield

Mushroom Season

Nature takes care, with the help of the mighty ant (and many other things).

Once the humidity reaches a dew point above 75%, mushrooms pop up all around town, which is magical, beautiful, and very natural. 
A beautiful orange and white cap turned brown in a day, then became a feast for an opportunistic colony of ants. An enterprising army of them made a hanging home from a sturdy leaf of grass for their harvest, creating a short commute to their job site, similar to my life here in the Hudson Valley. 

A sticky colony of ants, in a few blades of grass.

I don't particularly like dampness (if I did, I'd live in a rainforest), but the fecundity of this area is necessary to maintain its' astonishing biodiversity. I'll get by, and so will you, with or without air conditioning. Me? I've already weaned myself off of it, so that we can move forward together, by breaking our twin addictions to fossil fuels and petrochecmicals*, a chemical dependency fueled by the corruption of those who are similarly addicted at Big American Companies. 

A second orange and white cap grows by the stone wall on my commute.

White Mushroom Cap in Grass (Pearl River, July 2015).

Amen to you, during the hazy, hot, and humid weather this week. Better days are always ahead for you, my faithful. Our Father wants what's best for you, especially during this exciting Encyclical season: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/.

Flat caps and clover, perfect for bees and clover honey. What a commute!

 

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrochemical 

 

Skeleteon in the Closet

Pour vous, Isabelle.

Summertime is a big deal for a lot of women, and not just because school is out, and the kids are home ALL DAY LONG. I never really thought adversely about going to the beach or the pool, because I've been a swimmer for as long as I can remember. What's not to like? But, like any other social situation filled with strangers and new people comes the attitude that many women and girls have about their bodies. I don't have any issues about mine, because I do the right things: I eat clean, good food that I enjoy cooking and eating, I walk every day, I do yoga or swim or practice martial arts...something happens in my life to keep me on track, because I am motivated to have the best life ever. 
I want to have fun and enjoy myself.

Don't get me wrong; I smoked and drank my way through the SUNY school system like any other college kid on a strict budget, but I never got it twisted. I actually wanted to show off my bikini body every year, and why wouldn't I? I work hard at it, and I want to stay beautiful for as long as I can for my partner, because I care about how he feels. I know he thinks the same way about himself towards me, too. Not that MMA is the sport for "working out", because it is extremely intense training (like my childhood ballet lessons that could have been a really serious career), but I have had points in my life when I gained unwanted weight from neglect, typically because I was working a job so stressful, most people take some sort of drug (or cocktail) to get through it. 

And so, try as I might, I no longer feel any pressures to conform to any standard other than the one I set for myself, because childhood was my time for insecurities. I survived my time in grade school, with mean bullies and schoolyard taunts. That doesn't mean today's "PSA" is a joke; far from it. Every day in my happy little home here in the Hudson Valley I see my beautiful people out in public, mixing it up in our common community spaces with people far less fortunate than us. They say the Irish are blessed with luck, charm, and good looks, and that's true, though I think it's more than a fair trade off for centuries of brutal oppression, military occupation, and countrywide starvation. 
We earned it proper. 

Yet, many cultures still demonize their women for their looks (or lack thereof), which leaves one to wonder why a woman with a serious brain disorder would dare hope to have a happy, healthy, attractive child. From what?! Thin air? It takes a lot more than running around a track like a lunatic because your mom committed suicide, and 30 years later you still can't talk about it until you are gaunt and winded. The work that I do (physical stuff included) is a lot more demanding than me running away from my problems and the world, just as starvation and hunger will not bring you the peace you seek. You need help, and I'll be here for you, girl, but first ya gotta eat something. I mean it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/world/europe/31caro.html?_r=0

 

Satanic Surfer

Years ago, after a financial downturn I didn't control, circumstances forced me to move from place to place, like a woman with hell on her heels. One place was an old, run-down townhouse in Brooklyn, with the usual suspects: an old white lady landlord living in Long Island who just wanted checks in her mailbox, a Puerto Rican super/building manager turned rogue slumlord through the opportunity that indifference brings, a corrupt bodega owner in "da 'hood" who recommended hard cases to the seedy crash pad, and a desperate network of ex-cons, schizos, and other outsiders (like me), who needed a place to stay immediately, because a hotel was out of the question with no money.

And so I nimbly footed my way through the system, meeting up with a troubled but highly intelligent man while working at the public library. He finally found a room to rent in his "dream" neighborhood, which had quickly become the over-priced hellhole I wanted to escape, but options had run out for me. When my library friend offered to let me crash on his floor in an old Army sleeping bag while I greased the palm of "José" (the building manager who was in the palm of the corner bodega owner), for basic cleaning services to the garbage-filled room next door so I could move into it. 

I had to pay the rent for even that floor space dearly by listening to my new friend rant and rave while he badly juggled school, work, and life on his own, which naturally led him to weaning himself off his anti-psychotics during my time at "Casa Crack Shack", but that's a story for another day. My sick friend does it routinely, and no one ever does a thing for him about it; another hard luck case for social services that are so anti-social, I have no idea what petty bureaucrat thought it up, but they should serve time for the offense.

Anyway, he had a substitute for his expensive medication, with all the excuses hard criminals have, who also struggle with mental illness and addiction: dirt weed and lots of alcohol! It was a brilliant plan, because he soon ran out of the sleeping pills he needs for mania, hence the healing nature of pot, which left him with a nagging smoker's cough that did not go away. In between hits off his cheap cigar blunt and hacking coughs, he liked to tell me outlandish stories, because I was already well-known in the city for storytelling, right here on this site.

I'm sure he read it, though true to the lifestyle of the not-so-rich and not-to-be recognized famous, he pretended he hadn't seen my work, choosing to bend my ear with his horrible lies instead. The tales he told were telling about his psychosis, and I didn't have a choice, so in between cleaning a room that had been vandalized for years, after my day job at an indie house as a rock star cover artist, I sat on the floor of his tiny room to let and listened.

Like any kook you meet at a cocktail party or on the Internet, he was obsessed with the usual wacky shit that crazy people get wrong all the time: sex, drugs, rock n' roll, and religion. He mixed them up poorly, fueled by the pressure to perform at NA meetings, finely honed after many therapeutic sessions. He was your average reality t.v. show guest star, having told me that he was a child actor who auditioned on Broadway and had recently tried out for a weight-loss show as a coach, because one of his jobs in Florida was as a "Personal Trainer". He's basically your headcase whose weight fluctuates wildly from extremes, which is the exact profile most producers look for in potentials, but he isn't handsome, so nothing ever came of it.

What he did have were hours and hours of bullshit; some good, some really bad, and occasionally he veered close to art, without ever crossing over into our territory, but he was fascinated with me for my beauty and my genius, which kept me safe, because he was enthralled by me as an audience. He must have read about my boogie-boarding and beach going online, which naturally led him to tell me a crazy story about him violating the "Boarders-only" policy at the Rockaways*. He must have got caught in a riptide and panicked, because he was in way over his head in rough waters, but instead of telling me that, he concocted a bizarre tale about evil surfers who tried in vain to drown him.

Why? I asked mildly, though I am shocked as usual by the utter lack of reason the seriously disordered among us suffer from. Why would Satan give a crap whether some fat Nuyorican drowned or not? Were in you in league or something? "Well, no, Marie," and then he would adopt this pseudo-white guy, actor-y voice, which let me know the real show was about to start. He forcefully told me that "Luciferians" were real, when I countered with the obvious truth that there have never been any documented cases of cult activity, certainly not while surfing poorly in Queens without a board. He pretended that I was a naive white girl, and that I should look it up online soon, on that other Wild West domain of the insane known as "The Internet", like a hypochondriac addicted to WebMD.

After I pelted him lightly with a series of easy questions in rebuttal, tired from a long day of brutally hard work, I let him know the jig was up. I sagged on the mattress I now sat on, because the floor had gotten hard during his long speechifying. So, I looked him right in the eyes, after yet another position change, this time him on the mattress and me on the floor, and he knew it, too. His eyes changed, the wind went out of him, and he told me the truth, finally: he had a psychotic episode while he was swimming, and he thought devil-worshippers sounded a lot more exciting. The only demon in the room with him and me that night were the ones flying around in his brain; a series of random, uncontrolled brain bursts that one very sick man needs medicine and treatment for, not stories and t.v. shows.

Can you guess what he was studying (and I use that term loosely) at Staten Island Community College? Some design thrown in for flash, and a lot of drunken, stoned television and movie-watching, but that's not what he called it. He told me he was a Media Major. 

Hey, have fun at the beach this weekend, America! Watch out for all those sharks that swim in deep waters. You never know where you might find one.


* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Rockaway_Branch

Fish Tale

 

http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/269.html

I've written before about the weird international rock-star status that follows New Yorkers around wherever we are in the world, being a world capital for many centuries now. It's become synonymous with fame in "human", which takes some getting used to, because it's a really strange concept to be known for something as random as where you were born, but such is life. 

Handling your rise in societal stature rocks many a person coming up, and it can totally wreck you if you aren't prepared for that kind of attention and heat. Some people resort to a "Seinfeld"-like caricature, thinking it will amuse the natives into acceptance; others choose to disown their homeland completely, preferring to try blending in with the locals, which typically results in a funny/sad "My Cousin Vinny"-type of disillusionment. Many simply realize who they are, and come home. Wouldn't you?

I've accepted my home along with many other gifts, but I've had to work at it like anything else. Once you conquer the urban jungle, one quickly moves past the clichés to the real deal, because most New Yorkers do not live on the permanent stage set that Midtown has become for tourist revenue. Now what?! 

http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/52634.html

It's laughable to me, because as a native, I can disappear into the vastness that is New York state any time I want to, which will be a foreign concept to you until you actually rent a car and drive upstate. It's wild, it's mountainous, it's very cold (like Canada), and it will scare the fuck out of you, as any serious forest should. Every year, we lose professional people to it, like the young trooper who was killed early this season, when a migrating deer collided with his vehicle while crossing a back road.

To us, it's going back into the heart of darkness where the wild things are, and I love it. Trying to grasp a city as large as New York is impossible without experiencing it, and so is our wilderness. It's the lushness of it, the sheer enormity of our space that overwhelms most tourists, and that's exactly why we like it so much; you should be afraid of it to really appreciate it. 

http://www.dec.ny.gov/65.html

That's the respect any difficult place builds into the people who live their lives within it, and so you should do that. For many natives, it's also part of our deep, abiding faith. We love New York, and I ❤ NY, too. Even our logo* and motto is world famous! It's time for you to see why. See you there....or not: http://www.dec.ny.gov/23.htm

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York

Take it to the bank

Traditional banking is going away for good, and I mean that sincerely. Why put your money in a safe house that's compromised? You don't. Banks were supposed to be the place where your paycheck was protected from the bad guys, but a fortress is only as good as its' security. As recent as two years ago, anyone could deposit money into any type of account, under any name, with no I.D. check. Yeah, that means what you're thinking. Your nice grandma with the fly car also has a grandson who deals drugs, and every week he'd put stinking cash reeking of pot smoke into her account, without anyone doing anything about it.

But that's why criminals worked as "inside men" at banks nationwide: that's where the money is, and that's what robbers steal. The banking industry has become such a magnet for illicit use (Off-shore banking, anyone? Sweden?), that the notoriously criminal firm of Goldman Sachs* recently announced their entrance into the banking game, for rich people only, of course: http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-chair-writes-anticorruption-letter-2015-2.

I had my own run-in with the old crime syndicate a few years back, one that has its' hooks into every con in town, real estate and the city court systems included. The system temporarily bankrupted me, but not before I made each one of their key players do every financial tap dance there is, because no one messes with me and gets away with it. I am always a native New Yorker, no matter where I go.  

As the world's capital, we've always been a very wealthy area. Commerce was my dinner table conversation growing up, hence the lack of a business school on my curriculum vitae, but you didn't know that about me, did you? No, you didn't. That's because my dad was a greaser who played suckers for pool, one of my granddads' was a bookie during the Depression (in between pony rides), and they both taught me how to shuffle a deck of cards, just in case that junkie in Times Square wanted to shake me down playing "Three Card Monty" back in the day. So, we're back to the beginning, right? Not exactly.

After a corrupt system robbed me of all my pocket change, I was forced to do what I do best: improvise under the gun in the tightest of squeezes, which is exactly what I did. It's called "High Performing" in the circles where strong games are played. I ditched all my accounts, ran on cash, lived off my tax refund with a debit card from a chain tax service, then ditched that debit card the next year for a hard check. 

Of course, the well-known tax service couldn't cash it for me, because they aren't a bank. I knew that already, because I know businesses from the inside-out, and that's exactly what was told back to me: my own answer coming out of some admin's mouth (sorry, I meant "Office Manager"), which is certainly not my first ride around the block.

So, if you think financial calisthenics is the type of bloodsport you can handle, have at it. I know I can do any kind of weird gymnastics the system wants to throw my way. Sick and tired of being played? I got your back.  Read, learn, then do.

http://comptroller.nyc.gov/takeittothebank/

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_steal

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